A Hundred and ninety-two. That’s the number of pages in the current Double Issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine (September/ October 2009). I mentioned it last week, only briefly. At the time, with my regular subscription copy a few thousand miles away, I’d just procured a copy at a bookstore, and had only read two or three of the stories.

Full disclosure: two or three stories is normally all I have a chance to read from any typical issue. Without too much ballyhoo, this Halloween themed issue commanded more than the usual amount of my attention. I still haven’t read every story, but I read most of them. Without spoiling anything for those who haven’t read it, or boring those who have, I’m using my place here on Criminal Brief to talk about a few of the stories that stood out for me. I don’t have the time or space to write about each of the stories I read. The stories I discuss won’t necessarily be the best or even my favorites. In fact, the best of the lot is probably Clark Howard’s “The Way They Limp,” and I won’t bother to say any more about it.

In the Department of First Stories is “History on the Bedroom Wall,” one of the few stories in the issue that doesn’t have a Halloween theme. It was co-written by Rebecca K. Jones and her father Josh Pachter. While it’s the first story for the twenty-three year-old law student, it isn’t the first story for her dad. This is Josh’s second story to appear in the Department of First Stories. His first story, E.Q. Griffen Earns His Name, was published in the December, 1968 issue of EQMM while Josh was a teenager in high school. I met Josh a number of years ago at a Dell Magazine pre-Edgar gathering. In fact, I think he was accompanied by his daughter, who at the time was a teenager herself. Josh was very close with Ed Hoch, and collaborated with him on at least one story. “History on the Bedroom Wall” is a very different sort of story for Josh. In fact, with the Ani DeFranco themed story of the murder of a college coed, this short, effective thriller shows the influence of the younger collaborator.

And while we’re on the subject of Ellery Queen pastiches, Criminal Brief regular Dale C. Andrews – who teamed up with Belgian EQ expert Kurt Sercu for the 2007 story “The Book Case” – has returned to the pages of EQMM with “The Mad Hatter’s Riddle.” Ellery Queen and Lewis Carroll? That’s a combination that’s hard to beat. The story (a long excerpt is available here) is set in the mid-1970s, with Ellery back in Hollywood to consult for the television series starring Jim Hutton and David Wayne. For the episode, based on the 1934 short story, “The Adventure of the Mad Tea Party,” the producers brought back a pair of once-married Hollywood legends. But powers conspire to prevent the filming. I thought Dale did an excellent job on the story.

Last week in his column about pastiches, Rob made mention of Dave Zeltserman’s story “Julius Katz.” It was a pretty entertaining story that flips Nero Wolfe on his ears. The title character is a great detective in the mold, yet very different from Nero Wolfe. (Get it? Julius=Nero; Katz/Cats=Wolfe/Wolf). While Wolfe’s assistant Archie Goodwin was always out and about chasing girls when he wasn’t doing Wolfe’s bidding, Katz’s computerized “Archie” is stuck inside a CPU while Katz is out chasing women.

The last thing we need is another vampire detective series, but John Morgan Wilson gives it a unique twist in “City in Fog”, about a conscientious serial killer hitting San Francisco.

There’s nothing funny about kidnapping, but “Witch’s Baptism” by Tom Tolnay is a short, cute, humorous tale of a missing infant set amidst a lot of Greek aunts and grandmothers (and a few Scottish in-laws). Another kidnapping story set on Halloween amidst trick-or-treaters is Brian Muir’s “Candles and Windows.”

An obscene piece of lawn art triggers the ire of neighbors (and the fascination of children) in “Don’t Ax Me Why” by Maurissa Guibord, and ultimately helps solve a murder.

The Passport to Crime selection is a favorite feature of mine. Radhika Jha’s “Sleepers” involves a visiting government official to a remote Indian village where religious tension has frozen the populace. It’s not terribly strong as a mystery or as a crime story (although it has elements of both), but it is a deftly and beautifully written portrait of what most of us would think of as an exotic locale.

Well, I’ve come to the end of another column. Read the stories for yourself and share your thoughts here. See you in seven.

5 comments

I agree that this is an unusually interesting issue. The Andrews EQ pastiche is terrific, and I was also impressed with the Rebecca and Josh collaboration. A good story you don’t mention is “Return to Sender” by my old friends Bob and Angie Irvine writing as Val Davis. They do an excellent job with the Carmel background. One more thing: I had thought the only living frequent (note all the qualifiers!) EQMM contributor longer-running than I was James Powell, he having debuted in 1966, I in 1967, but the intro to William Bankier’s “The Tumbril” shoots us both out of the water: Bankier first appeared in 1962! Even the late Ed Hoch started after Bankier, later in the same year.

I wonder if the reason there has been only one comment thus far (prior to this one!) concerning Steve’s review could derive from the fact that (at least for this subscriber) the November issue has already arrived in today’s mail. I sense a pending autumnal chill!

Josh Pachter was a regular contributor to Cap’n Bob Napier’s letterzine, MDM. I met Josh at a convention or two long ago. Seems to me he brought along a baby in a carrier. Surely that couldn’t have been Rebecca.

Loved the “review!” I got my copy a few weeks ago and only read “Mad Hatter,” then I set the issue down to read later. I saw familiar names in your review, Steve, that I didn’t catch in my casual glance of the contents! I know what I’m going to be doing this weekend (after I mow the veldt in my backyard!)
p.s.: “Julius Katz”???? I should’ve caught that!

Hey, Steve, Jon and Bill! Thanks for the nice words about Becca’s and my collaboration.

Yes, the baby in the carrier back in 1988 was the two-year-old Becca — and the teenager at the pre-Edgars EQMM cocktail party was Becca, too. She’s 23 now — all growed up!

Collaborating with her was enormous fun. We’re talking about doing a second story together, if law school will ever leave her with a spare moment.

Yeah, Ed Hoch and I were close, though we didn’t have much contact in recent years. My loss. What a wonderful man. He is deeply, deeply missed. (And we did write a story together, “The Spy and the Suicide Club.” I also did a Hoch parody, “The Theft of the Spy Who.” Both were published in EQMM.)

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